Update on Our Activities

Update on Our Activities

It’s nice that after three years (not a long time) the industry is taking notice of NanoRacks. We have just completed our busiest quarter, which included having over 25 payloads on the latest SpaceX, becoming the first company to arrange for a small satellite to be deployed from the ISS and conducting a workshop with Space Florida for the international competition for 8 NanoLabs.

The workshop was fantastic, and we are all excited by the fact that serious proposals to Space Florida for microgravity research will outstrip the NanoLabs purchased. This means the industry is again turning to microgravity as an avenue for basic and applied research.

On the External Platform Program we just announced completion of the Initial Design Review with Astrium North America. We are on schedule for our deployment of the External Platform in 2014.

And last week NanoRacks announced that Infinity Aerospace was the winner of our competition to have a off the shelf, open source NanoLab. The ArduLab will be a NanoLab for the educational community, utilizing software known to more and more students. It was critical to us to have an off the shelf NanoLab that is student friendly, and we are all excited about working with Infinity Aerospace. Already, there are 25 orders for ArduLabs and I’m sure this will only grow in 2013. Congrats to them for submitting a fantastic proposal.

All of these events suggest that our overriding obsession on low costs, standardization and miniaturization for space station services is finding a wider audience. That’s good news for everyone that cares about assuring we get the maximum benefit out of the U.S. National Lab on space station.

Finally, I appreciate Space News devoting one of their ‘infamous’ interview sections to me. And it was great to get all the comments from colleagues which provoked some really good discussions on the future of space station and how we should take the next steps beyond low-earth orbit.

Without a doubt, a new chapter is opening on space utilization and we are really pleased to be playing a growing role in moving forward.